Transport ministry’s revenue up by 36pc in 3 months

KABUL (Pajhwok): The revenue of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) has increased by 36 percent in the last three months, compared to the corresponding period of last year, an official said on Tuesday.

Acting transport and civil aviation minister, Mohammad Hamid Tahmasi, at a press conference in Kabul, stressed the need for boosting revenue and ensuring transparency in the collection process.

New tax registration journals would be distributed within a week, he said, adding the step was taken to jack up incomes and prevent fraud in recovery. The new journals will register vehicles of all kinds, the amounts of load they carried and the routes they plied.

“This journal is a short-term plan. We plan to computerise the whole transport system in the long term,” he said. The ministry’s income went up by 36 percent in Kabul in the last three months and more than seven percent in other provinces.

Bilateral agreements would be signed between Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) that would pave the ground for the movement of cargo trucks and passenger buses between Afghanistan and the former Russian republics, he revealed.

Tahmasi welcomed the president’s order banning Pakistani trucks from entering Afghanistan and said the action had been taken in reaction to the non-implementation of Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) by Pakistan.

Cargo trucks will be now offloaded in Kandahar and Nangarhar, he said, adding Pakistan also denied entry to trucks of Afghan traders transporting products to other countries.

“Based on the APTA, both countries should allow cargo trucks to pass each other’s ports, but Pakistan violated that agreement,” he alleged.

The acting minister called Chabahar port important for exports and imports, saying the facility was more cost-effective than Abbas and Karachi ports for Afghan traders.